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1.1.13-Kingedmundsroyalmurder
Brick!club day 13: of stargazing, meditation, and scare quotes Okay, so chapter thirteen. This would be the chapter where Hugo goes, “The exact details of what you believe don’t matter as much as your actions do, especially when you get to a certain level of awesome.” Having spent the past twelve chapters showing exactly how the Bishop leveled up in awesome this much, Hugo gives himself a pass on the details of his exact theology. He does, however, assure us that “jamais les difficultés de foi ne se résolvaient pour lui en hypocrisie.” (Questions of faith were never solved for him by hypocrisy.) Basically he’s a good person, he’s not a hypocrite, that’s all we need to know! Also, this is the chapter where Hugo uses scare quotes and the one that caused me, on my first read through, to proclaim, “okay, I am officially in love.” Apparently the way to my heart is through scare quotes. I like the reminder that the Bishop was not always as he is now. Hugo’s rock metaphor is pretty cool: Sa mansuétude universelle était moins un instinct de nature que le résultat d’une grande conviction filtrée dans son cœur à travers la vie et lentement tombée en lui, pensée à pensée; car, dans un caractère comme dans un rocher, il peut y avoir des trous de gouttes d’eau. (His universal leniency was less a product of nature than the result of great conviction filtered in his heart across his life and slowly falling in him, thought by thought; for, in a personality like in a boulder, there can be holes from water drops.) I like the metaphor, I like the message, and I want to know more about the Bishop’s previous life. I also like that Hugo remembers what the narrator isn’t supposed to know and reminds us that stories of the Bishop’s early life are nothing but stories and rumor, not hard fact. More pointiness from Hugo: “Grégoire XVI, à quatre-vingts ans, se tenait droit et souriant, ce qui ne l’empêchait pas d’être un mauvais évêque.” (Gregory XVI, at eighty, held himself straight and smiling, which did not keep him from being a bad bishop.) I really, really love how the Bishop watches the night sky to relax and to think. To stray briefly into the personal, that’s something that resonates with me a lot. I love being out at night. I don’t really stargaze or contemplate the mysteries of the heavens but I definitely walk to relax and to work out problems and to think. There’s something really peaceful and awesome about walking at night, especially when there’s no one else around and all you hear are your own footsteps and the sounds of nature. I think this may be the first time I’ve genuinely felt connected to the Bishop, as opposed to just appreciating that yes, he is a good human being and yes, he is to be admired. It’s the little habits more than the spiritual pureness and earthly goodness that really make him resonate with me, and I love that Hugo mixes earthly habits in with his philosophical ideals in order to show the Bishop’s human side. He makes mistakes and he likes to stargaze and he’s not as mean to bugs as he should be and it’sthose qualities that make him human. Just one more thing: I love the way Hugo describes the Bishop’s contemplation of God. “Il n’étudiait pas Dieu, il s’en éblouissait.” (He did not study God, he let himself be carried away.) It reminds me of the way G talked about his conception of the infinite, as something so awe-inspiring that it can’t be understood, merely loved and dazzled by.